Did some tests a few weeks ago. Trying to develop some more fashion type illustration pieces in the ink style. Still working on it.

Wall Street Journal - Ask Teri / Charlene Chua illustration

I created an illustration for the Wall Street Journal’s Ask Teri column. The piece talks about winter boots, and how they are more practical footwear for the cold, wet winter weather in New York lately.

Here is the original sketch. The art director requested that the buildings be removed so as to let the girls come to the foreground. I think it was a good call!

By the way, I am making all the sketches blue in the hopes that they don’t show up in Google’s ‘clip art’ search. I don’t quite have a problem with Google itself (though I wish they would call it something other than ‘clip art’). However I noticed that there are some sites offering what they call ‘free coloring pages’. They’re basically riding off the Google clip art search, and running their own ads on their site. While it’s not a unique situation, I really don’t like how they’ve set up and besides, it’s running up bandwidth usage for everyone. It’s not cool. Anyway, here’s hoping blue sketches don’t qualify as ‘clip art’.

WSJ Ask Teri / Charlene Chua illustration

This was done for the Wall Street Journal’s Ask Teri column for Thursday Jan 20. It was a very quick turnaround (same day). The column is about a man who lost weight and so got his suits remade to fit. He was asking if he should get his shirts remade as well since the necklines were still uncomfortable. The art director originally asked for a picture of a tailor working at making a suit, and I supplied him a sketch of that. I also supplied an alternative sketch for an idea with a pair of hands with a measuring tape across a businessman’s neck, which I thought had related more to the text. The team at the Journal liked the idea and we ran with that. I ended up making the guy look older with a bit of a heavier neck. It was a nice, quick job, and it was great working with the folks at the Journal again (who are simply amazing with their response time!).

These were the sketches I provided:

This was the original tailor idea.

This was my original alternative. I adjusted the guy to be older.

Did this as a sketch a while back. Started by drawing the girl and didn’t know what else to do so I kept drawing and added the hands and chicken. It reminded me of Baba Yaga’s chicken house so that’s why it’s titled as such. But honestly I have no idea what’s really go on…

Did this for CG Monthly for an article called A Matter of Character: The complexities of character in video games. One of the things discussed was how simple characters like Pac Man and (original) Mario were more memorable because of their simplistic natures. The illustration is based around that theme, with the more complex character being anonymous with shades of grey. Look at the yellow bit more if you don’t immediately get it.

Did this last week for the Wall Street Journal. It was for a style and fashion column called ‘Ask Teri’. The image ran in the print edition, and also accompanies the article online.

OOOpppsss. My Bad. I forgot to mention that the lovely folks at Japan Cinema interviewed me. Sorrrryyy Marcello! Make them happy, go read it now .

Did this a while back. My agent requested a piece that had more guys in it, so I cooked this up. Hopefully they do, indeed, look like guys!

This was my e-card the holidays this year (I decided to do up an unused sketch for Santa Fe). Happy holidays and happy new year!

Thanks to Angela over at Santa Fe Reporter for working with me on this one! This is the cover for the magazine’s ‘winter guide’ issue. The space at the top is reserved for the masthead. The brief was open so I came up with some ideas involving winter. We both liked the idea of some sort of ice princss, so I married a couple of concepts together and came up with this.

Below are the other sketches I roughed:

(I ended up re-using this one for my own Xmas card.)

This was the reworked sketch: